His smile this time was all for her. “You can become anybody you want to in this world, baby girl. Just who do you want to be?”
A slow shiver wound down her spine, spreading out across her lower back. That tone. It was a killer.
Chapter Seven
Raider couldn’t help but glance again at the closed door to the Deep Ops computer room, where Brigid had disappeared with the kitten. The cheap lights buzzed above his head, and water audibly dripped somewhere in the distance.
“Drink.” Wolfe shoved a shot glass of rotgut across the desks.
“Not thirsty.” Raider kept his hand near the glass, since Roscoe had stood up from his perch outside Nari’s door. He’d seen how fast the dog could move when there was alcohol there for the plucking.
Force tipped his own glass down from the adjacent desk and then repoured. “Is it just me, or are the women irritated with us?”
Raider twirled his glass around. “We shouldn’t have given Brigid her father’s records.” The feeling in the pit of his stomach wouldn’t go away, although there was a warmth about sitting around with his team and having a drink. He’d missed having a team. He considered his foster siblings family, and he’d found a team in the HDD before his last op had gone wrong. Now he had this ragtag group of truly excellent fighters to call his own.
“She deserves the truth.” Wolfe looked toward Nari’s closed door. “What pissed the shrink off?”
Raider finally found a hint of amusement. “She suggested, again, that Force start counseling sessions with her. He kindly refused.” Not true. The refusal had been delivered in a voice harder than concrete.
Wolfe snorted. “The rest of us are supposed to talk to her. Why not you, Force?”
Force rolled his eyes. “The deal with HDD is that you all talk to her, since you’re a bunch of troublemakers. I’m the one they want to keep quiet, so I can get away without expressing every damn feeling I might have about anything.”
Raider rubbed his cleanly shaven chin. “The fact that they let you get away with blackmail really does lend credence to the fact that Lassiter is alive.” Lassiter was a prolific serial killer that Force had caught and supposedly killed, but an informant had sent Force information that indicated otherwise before disappearing, which was why Force had created the Deep Ops unit. The HDD would want to keep the secret because Lassiter had been an HDD employee. Hence, case room one. “Any new leads?”
“No.” Force downed another shot, and the dog whined from the corner. “Roscoe, knock it off. No more booze for you.” The dog barked once and then snorted, obviously not happy at being left out of the drinking.
The elevator door dinged, and Wolfe instantly drew out his weapon.
“Jesus.” Force wiped his eyes. “Put your gun away. Nobody even knows we have this crappy office.”
Wolfe didn’t move.
Raider’s blood pressure rose slightly. Not enough to move his body, but the tension was there, nonetheless. Why was Wolfe always so on edge? Force and Wolfe definitely suffered from PTSD, and Raider guessed West did as well. Hell. Sometimes his nightmares made him wonder if he shouldn’t be seeing Nari for real. She was a specialist in many disorders, including PTSD.
The door opened, and Malcolm West loped inside with a platter of cookies in his hands. “Lose the gun, Wolfe.”
Wolfe calmly placed the gun to the side of the bottle. “Figured it was you.”
West set the platter down on the desk. “I don’t want to know your plan in case it wasn’t me.”
True enough. Raider took an oatmeal cookie and bit in, nearly humming at the pure taste. Delicious. He chewed, his mood lifting, but they had to get back to work soon. The idea of missing girls from Thailand was keeping him up at night. He wanted to tell Brigid about that part of the case, but Angus had been dead set against it, at least until they had some proof that Coonan was trafficking in humans. Raider chewed again, forcing himself to enjoy the calm moments. “How is Pippa?”
“Good.” West pulled out the chair at his desk, which abutted and faced Raider’s. “She’s baking and has a lot of work to do for several of her Internet clients. Something about tax time. I think she and Nari have lunch plans later in the week, if she’s ready to venture out into the world again. If not, they can talk on the phone. Whatever she needs works for me.” He looked at Force. “What’s my job on this op?”
“Backup for now,” Force said, munching contentedly on a sugar cookie. “Raider and Brigid will go undercover, and the rest of us will be ready if we have to go in.” He watched as Wolfe downed a third cookie. “You should weigh a thousand pounds.”
Wolfe patted his flat stomach. “Good genes, baby.” He took another cookie.
Force shook his head. “I need you to keep an eye on your reporter. Her records, which she was nice enough to share with you since you saved her ass last night, are good. Her research and contacts are impressive, but we need her out of the way for this. Is she angry I had somebody tip her off about the story?”
“She doesn’t have enough sense to be angry,” Wolfe said, sipping his drink. “Besides, she has a big story she’s been working on for a while, one she won’t dish about, and she thinks she would’ve found this one, anyway. But I doubt it.”
Force’s eyebrows rose. “Her last few articles have all centered on pretty dangerous criminals.”
“Yes,” Wolfe said, looking toward Nari’s door. “I’ve been providing some backup, but she takes too many risks. I’m not sure why.”
Raider cut Wolfe a look. “What is happening between you two, anyway?” They couldn’t have one of their members feeding materials to a reporter, especially one as good as Dana seemed to be.
